For several days, the prescription management and distribution system used at Shoppers’ pharmacies was down, leaving customers needing medication refills in the dark.
Loblaws Companies, Shoppers Drug Mart’s parent company, confirmed in an email statement that there were intermittent system issues impacting several stores’ abilities to manage and distribute prescriptions.
The failure also impacted the pharmacy’s online prescription distribution system.
Loblaws public relations also said it was a technical issue and not a data or security breach.
Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacies advertise they offer many services beyond just prescription administration. Some of these things include flu shots, various COVID-19 supports and minor illness assessments.
However, the ability for customers to book these appointments were also impacted during this time.
There was seemingly no backup plan in place to accommodate an incident like this.
With limited options to receive vital medications, customers who regularly rely on Shoppers’ pharmacies had to use smaller independent pharmacies.
As a result, these locations were overrun with customers and did not have the resources to accommodate everyone.
These pharmacies were understaffed to deal with the excess amount of foot traffic, and did not carry every type of medication being requested.
A pharmacist at Fortino’s supermarket, Anastasia Sourges, confirmed that their normally quiet pharmacy was overwhelmed while Shoppers Drug Mart dealt with their problem.
Even after the system was revived, the backlog of medications needing refills created yet another problem for people and is still being addressed.
This issue is in stark contrast to when another large conglomerate, Rogers Communications, experienced an outage in 2022.
There was immediate widespread media coverage, as it impacted big players in the economy like banks. A CSIS investigation ensued.
Not only did the pharmacy shutdown not receive media exposure, but it seems to hint at a larger problem within large companies like this.
When Rogers Communications service failed in 2022, the effects were felt so widely and heavily that the company put $250 million into creating an “always on” network to combat any future outages.
The company took this system failure very seriously, with Rogers employees still declining to comment beyond restating publicly available information, citing it as still being a “sensitive topic.”
Tony Staffieri, the CEO and president of Rogers, following the incident said the company would “work hard to earn back the trust of Canadians.” Indeed, the company launched a series of television ads citing several members of the board working to restore Roger’s reputation.
This begs the question: why don’t backup supports and fail-safe systems already exist in these industries that service most of Canada’s population?
A Statistics Canada survey conducted between 2016 and 2019 was released in June 2021 that showed more than half of the Canadian adult population uses prescription medication.
The same survey reported that one in 10 Canadians rely on medications to treat issues such as high blood pressure and mood disorders.
Many of these medications need to be taken daily, which the pharmacy system shutdown severely impacted. Specifically, the most common blood pressure medications are designed to be taken once a day, according to GoodRx Health.
Information regarding safeguards Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaw plans to put in place following this disruption is seemingly unavailable.
Shoppers Drug Mart has declined to comment.